Sunday, April 02, 2017

FRIGHTENED FUCKTARDS BLOWING SMOKE UP YOUR ASS

WHITE HOUSE SAYS REAL STORY IS ABOUT LEAKING, NOT
RUSSIA

DEB
RIECHMANN and JULIE PACE

ASSOCIATED
PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the defensive, the White House is
throwing counter punches to deflect attention from three investigations into
the Kremlin's interference in last year's election and possible Russian ties to
President Donald Trump or his associates.

The White House says the real story is not about
Russia, but about how Obama administration officials allegedly leaked and
mishandled classified material about Americans. Reaching back to campaign mode,
Trump aides also contend that Hillary Clinton had more extensive ties to Moscow
than Trump.

The White House has not pointed to any hard evidence
to support its allegations, and instead has relied on media reports from some
of the same publications Trump derides as "fake news." The truth is
buried somewhere in classified material that is illegal to disclose.

__

THE FLYNN AFFAIR

Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn
following news reports that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts
with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. But the White House says the problem is
that Flynn's conversations were in the news at all.

"The real story here is why are there so many
illegal leaks coming out of Washington?" Trump tweeted after firing Flynn
in February.

The White House has called for investigations into the
disclosure of multiple intercepted conversations that Flynn had with Ambassador
Sergey Kislyak before the inauguration. The government routinely monitors the
communications of foreign officials in the U.S. It's illegal to publicly
disclose such classified information.

Related:

Officially, the White House said Flynn was forced to
resign because he'd give inaccurate descriptions of the discussions to Vice
President Mike Pence and others in the White House. But Trump has continued to
defend Flynn, suggesting he was only fired because information about his
contacts came out in the media.

White House officials say some Obama holdovers are
part of a so-called deep state out to tear Trump down.

This week, the White House latched onto a month-old
television interview from an Obama administration official who said she
encouraged congressional aides to gather as much information on Russia as
possible before the inauguration.

Evelyn Farkas, the former deputy assistant secretary
of defense, said she feared that information "would disappear" after
President Barack Obama left office.

Spicer called Farkas' comments "devastating"
and said they "raised serious concerns on whether or not there was an
organized and widespread effort by the Obama administration to use and leak
highly sensitive intelligence information for political purposes."

Farkas was no longer in government when she urged
officials to collect intelligence on "the staff, the Trump staff, dealing
with Russians." She left the Pentagon in 2015, just over a year before the
election. She says she was offering advice to associates and did not pass on
actual information.

Obama administration officials have acknowledged that
there were efforts to preserve information that could be related to the Russian
investigations, as was first reported in The New York Times. Former Obama
officials contend that intelligence was disseminated to pockets of the
government where officials had clearance to see classified reports, not
publicly leaked.

Still, Farkas herself connected the concerns among
government officials about the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia to the
information winding up in the press.

"That's why you have the leaking," Farkas
said in the March 2 interview on MSNBC. "People are worried."

___

THE HILL WEIGHS IN

The White House has embraced a top Republican's
assertion that information about Trump associates were improperly spread around
the government in the final days of the Obama administration. It appears the
White House played a role in helping House intelligence committee Chairman
Devin Nunes, R-Calif., acquire some of that information.

Nunes announced last week that he had seen
intelligence reports showing that Trump aides' communications were picked up
through routine surveillance. But he said their identities may have been
improperly revealed. The California congressman later said he viewed the
reports at the White House.

The White House contends that Nunes' information —
which has not been made public — validates Trump's explosive claim that his
predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper. Nunes has disputed that but
still says he found the reports "troubling."

The White House's apparent involvement in helping
Nunes access the information has overshadowed what Trump officials contend are
real concerns about how much information about Americans is disseminated in
intelligence reports. Trump has asked the House and Senate intelligence
committees to include the matter in their Russia investigations.

___

CAMPAIGN MODE

Trump won the election, but thinks it's his vanquished
opponent whose ties to Russia should be investigated.

Some of the White House's allegations against Clinton
stem from her four years as secretary of state, a role that gave her ample
reasons to have frequent contacts with Russia.

To deflect questions about Trump's friendly rhetoric
toward Russia, the White House points to the fact that Clinton was a central
figure in the Obama administration's attempt to "reset" relations
with Moscow — an effort that crumbled after Vladimir Putin took back the
presidency.

"When you compare the two sides in terms of who's
actually engaging with Russia, trying to strengthen them, trying to act with
them, trying to interact with them, it is night and day between our actions and
her actions," Spicer said.

Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state, has deep
ties to Russia from his time running ExxonMobil and cutting oil deals with
Moscow.

The White House has also tried to link Clinton to
Russia's purchase of a controlling stake in a mining company with operations in
the U.S., arguing that she was responsible for "selling off one-fifth of
our country's uranium."

The Clinton-led State Department was among nine U.S.
government agencies that had to approve the purchase of Uranium One. According
to Politifact, some investors in the company had relationships with former
President Bill Clinton and donated to the Clinton Foundation. However, the fact
checking site says most of those donations occurred well before Clinton became
secretary of state and was in position to have a say in the agreement.